When using LC on my ML MBPro I long for an immersive full screen scripting environment just like I use in Xcode. I thought that Jerry Daniels new Glass project might help but just like GLX it’s just too different for me to justify spending the time getting familiar with. The LC Script editor works and I have some integrated plugins etc that I can’t really do without. Anyway… to cut a long story short I made just about the simplest plugin ever and it gives me 99% of what I want. HEre’s the script:

on preOpenStack
set the style of stack "revMenubar" to "modeless" -- stops the toolbar overlapping the SE
set the windowBoundingRect to the working screenrect -- let's you maximise the SE
end preOpenStack

Put this in a stack script in the plugins folder and run it wen LC starts up.

Once run then

– edit a script

– 4 finger down swipe to bring up mission control

– drag the SE window to another space… over to the right on top of the + sign if you need a new one

– go to the space and maximise the SE

From then on you SE window will be in the other space and you can 4 finger swipe left/ right to get to it and anything that causes a script edit in the stack screen will switch you to the SE screen.

NEW: mergGK ($49) has been released. This is the first crowd sourced external developed for the LiveCode community. The external implements player authentication, leaderboards, achievements and challenges. It also implements peer-to-peer bluetooth and wifi messaging. There’s more to implement with Game Center matches so the crowd funding is still open for those features. Thanks goes to those who were involved in funding this project.

NEW mergAWS ($49) has been released and is focussed on Amazon Web Services. The initial release supports SimpleDB.

NEW: mergCL ($39) has been released that allows your app to receive notifications when the user enters or exits a specified geographic region or moves a significant distance. This external requires the removal of the exits on suspend key from the app plist file. You app is woken in the background whenever any of these events occur and you can send a local notification to get the user to bring it to the foreground.

mergAES 1.1.2 has been released and now also includes 128 bit, ECB and encrypt with key/iv options.

mergMK 1.1.3 has been released resolving a bug with setting the user tracking mode of the map.

These new additions to the suite take the total value to $757 and you can access it all for $299 for a year of updates or $79 for the first month and $20 per month ongoing.

Today I have released a new external for iOS called mergSocial. This one allows you to present a modal dialog for posting to facebook. twitter and sina weibo using the standard iOS 6 interface. The external allows you to specify some initial text, a list of images and a list of urls to post. With the release of this external mergTwitter will be deprecated as mergSocial on iOS 5 will use the Twitter framework to post to twitter. The external also includes the deprecated mergTwitter syntax or backwards compatibility. All this is nicely wrapped up for you into a single function to check if the service is available and a single command to present the view. Make some Objective-C coders jealous and add this to your app in 2 minutes. Here I’ll write the code for you:

You will want to use mergSocialIsAvailableForServiceType(“facebook”) somewhere in your openCard handler to work out if you should enable that button. That’s it!

mergSocial is available for purchase from http://mergext.com for $29 or as part of the iOS suite of externals. The price for the suite is doubling next week but you still have a chance to lock in the current pricing.

Today I have released two new externals and a huge update to an existing external. Now the suite contains a total of 15 iOS externals and 1 custom control (DropTool).

The new externals are:
– mergDropbox 1.0 which fully implements the Dropbox SDK on iOS including search, revisions, delta, thumbnails, upload, download and more. Everything is asynchronous which means your users can do other things in your app while files are downloading etc.
– mergAES 1.0 which implements the AES 256 encryption on iOS.

The major update is mergAV 2.0 which now includes a camera control that you can use to capture a still image or record video to a file from the front or back camera.

These externals have been added to the mergExt suite which also includes MapKit, document interaction, action sheets, PDF reader, external accessories, iAd, Settings app, tweet and barcode reading. You can purchase the suite from http://mergext.com or the RunRev store.

A new external called mergSettings that integrates your LiveCode iOS app with the Settings app and also presents a matching modal settings dialog using InAppSettingsKit has just been added to the mergExt suite.

The mergExt suite now includes 13 iOS externals and a DropTool adding capabilities to LiveCode ranging from barcode reading through to sending tweets. A poll is now available on the M E R Goulding Software Development facebook site for you to vote on what you would like to see added to the suite next.

mergExt has grown again with a new external called mergReader to show a modal PDF reader using the vfrReader open source project. As this wasn’t on the poll I haven’t reset that but don’t forget to vote for what you want next. More details at http://mergext.com

A client needed their sales staff to be able to print to a mini bluetooth printer from a LiveCode iOS app. The solution was to create another external for the mergExt suite called mergAccessory. With this new external you can connect to, write to and read from accessory hardware that are part of the Made for iPhone program. I’ve included in the download an example for printing to my client’s chosen accessory the BlueBamboo p25i.

The first in my series of articles demonstrating the creation of an iOS app using a number of mergExt externals and MobGUI has been published. To celebrate the release there’s half price off mergExt and MobGUI when bought together from the RunRev Marketplace and using the coupon code MERGUI.

The mergZXing project has evolved into a suite of externals for LiveCode. The externals are currently only for LiveCode iOS but long term plans involve all platforms. The suite is called mergExt (standing for M E R Goulding EXTernals) and is available at http://mergext.com. Development of new externals is driven by a community ideas forum and a poll to indicate what people need the most.